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Dessert

Soft Gingerbread

Soft gingerbread is a baked dough made with eggs, molasses, butter, lard, ginger, baking soda, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Soft Gingerbread

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the beaten eggs, molasses, and the butter and lard mixture.

  2. Add the ginger, cream of tartar, dissolved baking soda, and salt to the mixture.

  3. Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff.

Bake

  1. Spread the dough in a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, moisture and the characteristic gingerbread flavor.
Butter and lard
Add fat for tenderness and moisture in the finished gingerbread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of molasses and cream of tartar to produce lift.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that activates the baking soda and helps the crumb stay soft.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the dough and holds the bake together.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff. Adding too much flour at once or overmixing can make the gingerbread dense and tough, because gluten develops with flour and mixing. Adding it gradually lets you stop at a stiff but not overworked dough.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, molasses, butter, cream, milk, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, molasses, butter, cream, milk, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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